This book deals with the judgments of the supreme courts of a number of Member States which determine the constitutionality of some part or parts of implementing legislation by which the EU Framework Decision on the European Arrest Warrant (EAW) was transposed into national law.

The Framework Decision, adopted in June 2002, seeks to change the mechanism by which individuals sought for trial or punishment in one Member State, but who are present in another Member State, are made available to the Member State which seeks to try or punish them. This mechanism has traditionally been called extradition and has been the subject of international agreements. According to the Framework Decision, individuals, including nationals of the state, must be surrendered to the authorities of other Member States for trial or punishment in respect of a specified list of offences on a warrant issued by the authorities of the seeking state.

The Framework Decision is revolutionary in international criminal law because it does five key things:

(1) it removes from the ambit of political judgment the decision whether to hand over an individual to the criminal justice system of another state;
(2) it removes, as regards the listed offences, the principle of extradition law that before an individual can be handed over to the criminal justice authorities in another state for the purposes of trial or punishment, the offence must be an offence in both states;
(3) it applies equally to foreigners and nationals of the Member States, ie there is no exception on the basis of citizenship;
(4) it simplifies the procedures for extradition; and
(5) it requires the acceptance of a foreign warrant by national judicial authorities without an inquiry into the facts behind the warrant (the principle of mutual recognition).

The Framework Decision had to be implemented into national law by 31 December 2003. The Commission produced its first report on the implementation of the EAW on 23 February 2005.

Contents

Introduction (Elspeth Guild )
The European Arrest Warrant Framework Decision between Past and Future (Nico Keijzer)
The Cypriot Constitutional Court’s Rejection of the EAW (Andreas Kapardis)
The Finnish Constitutional Challenge (Tuomas Ojanen)
The European Arrest Warrant in Germany (Florian Geyer)
The European Arrest Warrant and the Polish Constitutional Court Decision of 27 April 2005 (Kazimierz Bem)
The Belgian Court of Arbitration and the European Arrest Warrant (Luc Walleyn)
The Relationship of Extradition Law in International Treaties with the European Arrest Warrant and its Application in France (Roger Errera)
Spain and the EAW – a View from a “Key User” (Mar Jimeno Bulnes)
Implementation of the European Arrest Warrant and the Constitutional Impact in the Member States (Sebastian Combeaud)
The European Arrest Warrant – Practical Problems and Constitutional Challenges (Pavel Zeman)
The Democratic Concerns regarding the Operation of the European Arrest Warrant (Joanna Apap)
The Supremacy of International Law and Judicial Cooperation with International Jurisdictions (Luc Walleyn)
The Academic Assessment of the European Arrest Warrant (Diede Jan Dieben )
Conclusions (Elspeth Guild)